If you’ve been a longtime skateboarder, chances are that you’ve had couple pairs of shoes being torn apart due to the intensive skating activities. That being said, many are switching to skate shoes to enhance their skateboarding experiences as well as keeping their feet protected. In this post, we’ll be discussing about the needs of skate shoes for skateboarders.

Do You Need Special Shoes For Skateboarding?

It has long been an intense debate on whether you need skate shoes for skateboarding. While many of us tend to wear our regular shoes while we’re skating since it’s more convenient and fashionable. Skateboard shoes do have their undeniable advantages:

Better protection of your feet

The first and most important benefit of wearing skate shoes is that they provide better protection over your feet, especially when you’re practicing tricks and techniques on your board. The better cushion and padding would relieve the pain and fatigue from intensive practicing.

More comfortable on the grip tape

The biggest reason why many people call skateboards are “shoe destroyers” is probably because of the rough grip tape. While it does a great job at providing stability and control over the board, the rough surfaces of your grip tape would likely to sand off the bottom of your shoes, making them flatten and less durable. On top of that, the grip tape is also responsible for tearing your shoes due to its grippy nature.

Better performance

Since skateboard shoes are designed with skateboarding in mind, they tend to perform much better in this regard. That being said, you’ll find yourself comfortably performing tricks and techniques on the boards without putting too much pressure on the feet.

Though it’s a fun and relaxing sport, you can still be having fatal accidents when skating if you don’t know how to protect your body correctly. The protective gears aren’t there just to make you look good, they’re responsible for protecting your body from being hurt by accidents.

However, you should know that there is nothing wrong with skating correctly and a lot of cases in which accidents happen are either because the skaters don’t wear the proper gear or it’s because they don’t know how to protect themselves from falls.

In this post, we’ll raise your awareness with the most dangerous injuries in skateboarding and how can you protect yourself from them by practice falling in the proper ways.

The worst injuries

The protective gears

Bleeding palm, elbows, or knees

This might not be the worst injuries with skateboarding, but’s definitely the most common injuries that could happen with skateboarders. It’s because when we fall, our body naturally position these parts in front of the important organs, thus resulting in bruises and bleeding in these places.

As small as they are, you shouldn’t take lightly your skateboard wheels. They are one of the most important components of your skateboard. Without reliable wheels, your board would feel stiff, making it harder to control.

Which is why we believe that our list of top 10 things you need to know about skateboard wheels would surely benefit you.

How to choose your skateboard wheels?

the best skateboard wheels

It’s important for beginners to have basic understandings about skateboard wheels before spending your hard-earn money on them. Here you’ll find the quick guides on choosing your skateboard wheels:

As a skateboarder, it’s important to know how your skateboard works and how to take care of it. Hence, you’ll need to understand about each component on the board and their maintenances.

The grip tape, being one of the most important components on your skateboard, require frequent cleaning to ensure its longevity and functionality.

What’s a grip tape and why you need to clean your grip tape?

Shark Wheel Review

In case you’re a beginner and haven’t noticed yet, the surface of your skateboard feature a rough and sticky layer. It’s called the grip tape, and it’s responsible for providing better grip for your feet. This allows you to stand on the board comfortably while maintaining better control over it. The frictional surface also enhances your grip when doing tricks.

After extended use, your grip tape would likely to be covered in dust and stain. This reduces the amount of grip you have on the board and makes it more difficult to skate on it. In additions, it’s also more dangerous to skate on a skateboard with dirty grip tape, you can easily lose your grip and fall off the board, causing serious injuries.

With that being said, it’s always good to know how to clean your grip tape if you’re into skateboarding.

How to clean grip tape?

It’s always important to clean your grip tape frequently. This helps maintain its good condition and make your grip tape more durable. If you neglect for too long, simple dust particles will turn into giant and bulky stains that are hard to wipe out.

For dust

Most of the time, your skateboard will get dirty due to the dust and dirt that are on your shoes. So dusty grip tape has always been a norm if you’ve been practicing skateboarding long enough. To clean it, there are many different methods, and to be honest, whatever you do, it’ll probably work. It’s only dust, you can easily wipe them out or wash them out using water.

But if you’re looking for a quick and easy method, then the grip gum would be an awesome choice. You can purchase it in any skate shop around you and they’re great for fast cleaning your board. You’ll just have to lay the board on the ground with the deck facing up. Use the grip gum to scrub on the dusty surface and it’ll suck all the small particles that are sticking on your grip tape.

The effect is instantaneously and it’ll only take about 30 seconds before your board becomes clean once again.